AAPG Learn! Blog

Top Nigerian geoscience scholars successfully concluded a ground-breaking new AAPG-Indiana University field immersion program for petroleum industry-bound international students. Taking place from September 6 – 20, 2009, the course involved a field study course in western Montana, with a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Entitled Structure, Tectonics, and Sedimentary Basin Analysis in the Tobacco Root Mountains, Montana, the course was taught by geology professors Lee Suttner and James Brophy.

Dr. Suttner designed, developed, and championed the course. In the inaugural program, the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists sponsored a group of Nigerian geoscientists, which included students, faculty, and an industry representative. The consensus was that the experience was truly a life-changing event.

The field course took place at the Indiana University Geologic Field Station, situated in an area where three structural regimes which characterize interior western North America converge, with basement-cored block uplifting and supra-crustal fold-thrusting of Laramide age, and Cenozoic extensional (basin and range) faulting. It is an ideal location to study the sedimentary, plutonic, and volcanic records associated with a variety of plate-tectonic settings, which include an aulacogen, back-arc foreland basin, and extensional intermontane basins.

Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of the course, the individual participants demonstrated

* better appreciation of actual scale and geometry of a variety of reservoir architectures and products of rock deformation
* enhanced ability to make interpretations from a limited data base
* increased self-confidence in integrating a variety of stratigraphic, sedimentological, structural, and geophysical information in problem-solving
* improved skills in working as a part of a team

Selection Process:
The Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists conducted a competition to select the best and the brightest geoscience students from universities in Nigeria. Students were selected strictly on merit. Victor Agbe-Davies, the president of NAPE, was instrumental in organizing the competition and in securing funding for the students to pay travel, lodging, and tuition costs. AAPG acted as a facilitator and provided logistical, registration, and coordination support.

Financial Arrangements:
The costs of the two-week program were kept as low as possible by using the Judson Mead Geological Field Station. NAPE wire-transferred funds for the program, which included logistical support, administrative support, tuition, lodging, instruction, field notebooks, equipment, and side field excursions. AAPG donated back to the project (to Indiana University Field Station) the fee it would have collected for coordination, marketing, and financial support.

Daily Schedule:

September 6: Introduction to field study in structurally complex terrains

September 7: Facies architecture and reservoir properties of a passive continental-margin stratigraphic section

September 8: Introduction to mapping skills on topographic maps and aerial photographs

September 9: Mapping and cross-section construction of large-scale thrust-related structures in a carbonate rock sequence

September 10: Guided independent mapping exercise

September 11: Comparative analysis of facies architecture and reservoir properties of strata in compressional and extensional tectonic settings

September 12-13: Mapping and cross-section construction of small-scale thrust-related structures in a siliciclastic rock sequence

September 14-15: Overnight trip to examine the structure and geomorphology of the Beartooth uplift and to study thermal activity associated with the Yellowstone National Park “hot-spot.”

September 16: Facies architecture and mapping of a complex structure in a proximal foreland basin setting